Sinkittn

Ok but wage gaps are real???? Like at least in Canada they are. Females make 70 cents for every dollar a male makes for the same job. Like that person is poorly educated. I've done my research.

I saw this summed up really well one time by @fandomsandfeminism:Let’s talk about the wage gap, and PAY GAPS.

People often fail to appreciate the difference between pay gaps and wage gaps. You are asking for specific examples of wage gaps, but pay gaps are often an even bigger problem.

Wage gaps, where people’s actual SALARIES for equal work show a disparity, (which is what you are looking for examples of) can and do still happen, of course, we know that they do, but pay gaps are even more insidious. In 2010 the median income of Full time Year Round workers was $42,800 for men, compared to $34,700 for women. The reasons for this are varied, and when you factor in race, disability, trans identity, and sexual orientation the numbers can become even more startling.

For example: A study by sociologists Shelley Correll, Stephan Benard, and In Paik found that, when comparing equally qualified women job candidates, women who were mothers were recommended for significantly lower starting salaries, perceived as less competent, and less likely to be recommended for hire than non-mothers.  The effects for fathers in the study were the opposite: fathers were actually recommended for significantly higher pay and were perceived as more committed to their jobs than non-fathers.[source] [source]

But just looking at gender, even ignoring employers that do break the law and pay their female employees less (and yes, you can TRY to bring that to court and pay all those court fees. Never mind that not all women have the resources to DO THAT), there are many other factors that come into play: Women have less success in gaining promotions than their male counter parts (and other Glass Ceiling effects), women are dissuaded from higher paying fields (such as STEM fields) through institutional hostility, women are expected to take unpaid maternity leave for child care when men are not (regardless of whether or not they will), women are less successful at salary negotiations and are sometimes even penalized by employers for trying at MUCH higher rates than men, work that is traditionally female dominated being undervalued on a cultural level (women might be cooks, but not chefs; nurses, not doctors; etc.) and a myriad of others.

We know, for example, women need an additional degree in order to make as much as men with a lower degree over the course of a lifetime. A woman would need a doctoral degree, for instance, to earn the same as a man with a bachelor’s degree, and a man with a high school education would earn approximately the same amount as a woman with a bachelor’s degree.

The fact is that women, on average, DO make less than men, and the issue isn’t always direct illegal wage imbalance. The issues are often far more wide reaching and speak to a cultural misogyny that has to be confronted beyond just legislation.

This is a really good article to read for more information:Explaining the Wage Gap“-V

#this is what otps are made of

I am scared of lizards.

SAVEME!

The year is 1995, congress member Bernie Sanders stands in opposition of a homophobic statement said by Duke Cunningham. Cunningham derisively refers to “homos in the military” to support his argument while (strangely) discussing the Clean Water Act. Sanders, having none of it, quickly rises to the defense of thousands of men and women everywhere. Sanders ire is such that he repeatedly disrespects the Chairman by speaking over him in order to say his piece. [Video Source]

What does this say for Sanders? Well, that’s for you to decide. But to me, it says that for 20+ years strong he has shown his public support for LGBT+ persons everywhere, even in the face of ridicule and disrespect. Unlike some, Sanders has always been vocal about his beliefs concerning the LGBT+ community, and he has always held them. Key word always, and not just when doing so might garner him support for his campaigns. 

BONUS:

Potential ‘Jessica Jones’ spoilers But I feel like this needs to be said now (TW: rape):

Before we get into ‘Jessica Jones’, here’s your reminder that Zebediah ‘Purple Man’ Killgrave is an evil, manipulative, mind-controlling rapist and an absolutely loathsome individual that should not be respected or woobified because David Tennant is playing him. 

Enjoying Tennant’s performance as Killgrave is one thing, trying to make excuses for Killgrave and any of his deplorable actions because he’s played by Tennant is another.

Please don’t.

I’m also saying this now out of care so that rape survivors who are not familiar with the Jessica Jones world- especially those who have no knowledge about the Purple Man character- know what they’re getting into before they watch the show. 

I want y’all to know that this show may have a lot of triggers when it comes to rape and manipulation so please take heed when viewing if you do decide to watch the show.

I wish the US would invade the US to build functioning roads and establish a democracy.

having body hair annoys me but removing body hair also annoys me and also life, life annoys me

Take a look at this picture. Do you know who it is?

Most people haven’t heard of him.

But you should have. When you see his face or hear his name you should get as sick in your stomach as when you read about Mussolini or Hitler or see one of their pictures. You see, he killed over 10 million people in the Congo.

His name is King Leopold II of Belgium.

He “owned” the Congo during his reign as the constitutional monarch of Belgium. After several failed colonial attempts in Asia and Africa, he settled on the Congo. He “bought” it and enslaved its people, turning the entire country into his own personal slave plantation. He disguised his business transactions as “philanthropic” and “scientific” efforts under the banner of the International African Society. He used their enslaved labor to extract Congolese resources and services. His reign was enforced through work camps, body mutilations, executions, torture, and his private army.

Most of us – I don’t yet know an approximate percentage but I fear its extremely high – aren’t taught about him in school. We don’t hear about him in the media. He’s not part of the widely repeated narrative of oppression (which includes things like the Holocaust during World War II). He’s part of a long history of colonialism, imperialism, slavery and genocide in Africa that would clash with the social construction of the white supremacist narrative in our schools. It doesn’t fit neatly into a capitalist curriculum. Making overtly racist remarks is (sometimes) frowned upon in polite society, but it’s quite fine not to talk about genocides in Africa perpetrated by European capitalist monarchs.

Mark Twain wrote a satire about Leopold called “King Leopold’s soliloquy; a defense of his Congo rule“, where he mocked the King’s defense of his reign of terror, largely through Leopold’s own words. It’s 49 pages long. Mark Twain is a popular author for American public schools. But like most political authors, we will often read some of their least political writings or read them without learning why the author wrote them (Orwell’s Animal Farm for example serves to re-inforce American anti-Socialist propaganda, but Orwell was an anti-capitalist revolutionary of a different kind – this is never pointed out). We can read about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, but King Leopold’s Soliloquy isn’t on the reading list. This isn’t by accident. Reading lists are created by boards of education in order to prepare students to follow orders and endure boredom well. From the point of view of the Education Department, Africans have no history.

When we learn about Africa, we learn about a caricaturized Egypt, about the HIV epidemic (but never its causes), about the surface level effects of the slave trade, and maybe about South African Apartheid (which of course now is long, long over). We also see lots of pictures of starving children on Christian Ministry commercials, we see safaris on animal shows, and we see pictures of deserts in films and movies. But we don’t learn about the Great African War or Leopold’s Reign of Terror during the Congolese Genocide. Nor do we learn about what the United States has done in Iraq and Afghanistan, potentially killing in upwards of 5-7 million people from bombs, sanctions, disease and starvation. Body counts are important. And we don’t count Afghans, Iraqis, or Congolese.

There’s a Wikipedia page called “Genocides in History”. The Congolese Genocide isn’t included. The Congo is mentioned though. What’s now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo is listed in reference to the Second Congo War (also called Africa’s World War and the Great War of Africa), where both sides of the multinational conflict hunted down Bambenga and ate them. Cannibalism and slavery are horrendous evils which must be entered into history and talked about for sure, but I couldn’t help thinking whose interests were served when the only mention of the Congo on the page was in reference to multi-national incidents where a tiny minority of people were  eating each other (completely devoid of the conditions which created the conflict no less). Stories which support the white supremacist narrative about the subhumanness of people in Africa are allowed to be entered into the records of history. The white guy who turned the Congo into his own personal part-plantation, part-concentration camp, part-Christian ministry and killed 10 to 15 million Congolese people in the process doesn’t make the cut.

You see, when you kill ten million Africans, you aren’t called ‘Hitler’. That is, your name doesn’t come to symbolize the living incarnation of evil. Your name and your picture don’t produce fear, hatred, and sorrow. Your victims aren’t talked about and your name isn’t remembered.

Leopold was just one part of thousands of things that helped construct white supremacy as both an ideological narrative and material reality. Of course I don’t want to pretend that in the Congo he was the source of all evil. He had generals, and foot soldiers, and managers who did his bidding and enforced his laws. It was a system. But that doesn’t negate the need to talk about the individuals who are symbolic of the system. But we don’t even get that. And since it isn’t talked about, what capitalism did to Africa, all the privileges that rich white people gained from the Congolese genocide are hidden. The victims of imperialism are made, like they usually are, invisible.

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“Angels” block the Westboro Baptist Church from protesting Orlando victim’s funeral

When a handful of Westboro Baptist Church members showed up Saturday at the funeral of Orlando shooting victim Christopher Leinonen, counterprotesters donning large, white angel wings were there to shield mourners. Members of the Orlando Shakespeare Theater put together the wings as a symbolic but also literal screen between the WBC and funeral attendees. An Orlando Police tweet later proved the efforts to stop the WBC worked.

When your daughter asks you if she’s pretty, looking like the universe is weighing down her little bones with insecurity, resist the urge to say “Ofcourse, darling, Ofcourse you are.” Tell her instead: “Everyday, I bless the stars that fell apart to allow your body’s embers to glow to come to life.” Tell her instead: “In the 7 billion that exist on this planet you are the only one of your kind.” Tell her instead: “You are so much more than pretty. The stars that gave you to me made you to be like the sun. You are their best ever masterpiece. You aren’t pretty. You are inspiring.”

Nikita Gill (via meanwhilepoetry)